Analysis of Woman in Dark Colors
She cooks fish and rice,
her unfolded hips
pushing all into place.
The marl of her hands
turns bowls of smoke
Into oils and aromas,
lemon and butter.
I won’t get to eat the spiced Mackerel,
but I imagine its glazed head laid
in a tabby cat’s saucer.
I think of small-boned piquant desires,
the lick of her fingers,
the coral curl of her tongue
as If she were a cat and I
a fish in her dish.
She wears dark clothes, a peasant garb,
black skirts below her knees,
a lace shawl when she goes to church.
She is Greek, a Turk
an Albanian. She is an Etruscan vineyard
for orphans. A mother to a lover.
Her gourd is full and spilling.
In her hair black horses leap,
a few stout gray mares
amidst the mane.
Tides turn and swirl
through turtle-shell combs.
She’s not a disciple of pretty;
always a womb-shaper for wayward strays.
She is earthenware to hold my hungers.
These words are just terracotta fragments;
what she is, is a pot for evening honey
a rustic oven for provincial passions.
She will dance a stamping dance
In any cobbled square
or kneel, capable arms
grinding the fruits of the sun
upon a stone.
Apart from Holy Days,
she works at a grocery store.
There she creates grape-filled,
sunbaked pastries
for those in need of the olive yield
of her light.
Scheme | AXXXXXB XXBCCXXX XDXXXBXXXXXX EFAXEX XXXXXFXXDXX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11101 00101 101011 01101 1111 0110010 10010 1111101100 110101111 0010110 1111110010 011010 0101101 11100101 01001 11110101 110101 01111111 11101 1010011101010 1100101010 0111010 0011101 01111 0101 1101 11011 110010110 10111101 11101111 1111110 11110111010 01010101010 1110101 010101 111001 1001101 0101 011101 11101001 110111 110 110110101 101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,219 |
Words | 234 |
Sentences | 17 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 7, 8, 12, 6, 11 |
Lines Amount | 44 |
Letters per line (avg) | 22 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 196 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 47 |
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"Woman in Dark Colors" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 8 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/62055/woman-in-dark-colors>.
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